The Olfactrius Charm
by Muses' Advocate
Summary: The Olfactrius charm is, in a word, useful." Two in the morning in the Slytherin common room finds a sobbing and drunk Pansy, a fire-truck-pajama-clad Malfoy, a hungry Milliecent Bulstrode, and a nowhere-near-finished Charm assignment. One-shot.


Well. Rightfully, I should be working on chapter two of Through the Eyes of a Stranger, or chapter four of Oh, the Places You'll Go! But quite frankly, I didn't want to. This started as chapter two of Through the Eyes of a Stranger, but it was so fluffy and had nothing to do with the storyline of TES, so I thought I'd send it out into the fan fiction world all by itself . Also, because it originally started as part of TES (in which Daphne is the main character) Daphne is also the main character in this one. Like I've said before, _she is not an original character_.  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for my new fuchsia wastebasket that says "TRASHY" on one side. Rock on. And, of course, any references to PoA in fifteen minutes are solely the property of miss Cleolinda Jones.

* * *

Daphne Greengrass was, in a word, bored. In five words, she was bored, lethargic, lazy, depressed and hopeless. In one rolls of parchment, average writing size, essay form- well, never mind.  
  
She stared hopelessly at her Charms essay. Charms wasn't really her strong suite, but it was never particularly difficult either. Her assignment, though ("One full scroll on the uses of the Olfactorius Charm. Due Thursday!") was seemingly impossible. It was nearly two o'clock Thursday morning, and she only had an inch and a half.  
  
Daphne scribbled another short sentence unto the scroll before her. Two inches.  
  
She sighed and threw a piece of doodled-upon parchment into the fire, wondering why she had immediately afterward. She'd been rather fond of that particular sketch- Malfoy getting mauled by a vicious Hippogriff with foam running in torrents from it's beak. She cracked a grin. One could dream after all.  
  
She watched in mindless fascination as the flames gave a surreal glint to the black ink, turning the stick-figure Malfoy's blood a more proper crimson and lending a manic gleam to the Hippogriff's eye. She sighed, watching the fire lick at and finally consume the scrap of parchment.  
  
From a couch somewhere behind her and to the left came a shout. She jumped; she'd thought the last of the Slytherins had gone to their dorms at least an hour ago. Slowly, she turned to investigate. There, on that couch- was the cushion twitching? She rose slowly and deliberately form her seat and inched over. It certainly appeared that the cushion had gone into convulsions, anyway. It uttered another little cry and at the same time Daphne realized the cushion had hair.  
  
Mentally berating herself for stupidity (and ultimately blaming it on lack of sleep) Daphne prodded the figure. In the firelight, their black robes seemed to merely melt away into the couch, but as soon as they turned over, she'd realized her mistake. It was Pansy.  
  
"Er... Pansy? Pansy!" the figure stopped twitching. "Um, Pansy, it's two in the morning, you might want to go to bed." Pansy sat up slowly, stretching and yawning all the way, obviously trying to reclaim her former title as _High and Mighty Queen of the Purebloods_ at Hogwarts and dispel the image from moments before of _Twitchy Chick Who Looks Like a Cushion_. Daphne tried not to laugh at the sight before her; Pansy, usually so cold and collected, was now sporting the worst case of bed-hair Daphne had ever paid witness to, along with spectacular rivulets of mascara trailing halfway down her sallow cheeks.  
  
"Oh, it's you," she slurred to Daphne. "You must have woke me up with your whimpering. What was that about, anyway?" She didn't wait for an answer, but instead passed out on the cushion again. Daphne gave a rough shove to her shoulder. This could have benefits, she thought with a wicked glee, noticing a nearly-empty bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey laying on the floor in very close proximity to where Pansy's hand had been minutes before.  
  
"Pansy," she cooed trying to act as one of Pansy's friends might. "Pansy, honey, what's wrong?"  
  
Pansy sat up again, swaying drunkenly before bracing herself against the back of the sofa. Then, much to Daphne's surprise, she began to sob theatrically. "He- he cheated on me!" she wailed. "I walked down to the kitchens for some chocolate a-and there he was, s-snogging her in the middle of the h-hallway!" every few seconds she let out a miserable hiccough. She glared at Daphne for a moment through watery eyes, before dissolving back into sobs.  
  
Despite the fact it was outright, rude, Daphne couldn't help but asking, "_Who _was Blaise kissing?"  
  
Pansy let out a sound that Daphne thought might be justifiably compared to the dying wails of an elephants, or perhaps a particularly vocal whale.  
  
"N-not Blaise!" Pansy cried. "D-Draco! I though he loved _me_!"  
  
Daphne was speechless. Could it be possible that Pansy was so utterly blind to the fact Malfoy despised her? Then again, despise was a step or two down from the usual loathing that he contained for just about anyone else.  
  
Daphne would have said something, but Pansy looked as though she were about to be sick. Thinking quickly, she summoned the wastebasket over and held it out to Pansy not a moment too late.  
  
Trying not to gag herself, Daphne looked away and muttered, "Evanesco." The mess was gone, but the smell of sick and stale whiskey remained. Once again, Daphne flicked her wand and murmured, "Olfactrius." Immediately the odor lifted, replaced by a faint grassy scent.  
  
Sighing, she lifted Pansy's arm and placed it around her own shoulders, trying not to bang the sniveling girl's feet too badly on the stairs. Finally, she reached the door to the girl's dormitories and heaved Pansy inside. She fell in a heap on the threshold.  
  
Daphne nudged her none too gently with her foot.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Daphne rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. So what if Parkinson camped out in the middle of the doorway. She'd blackmail her later. But in the meantime, she had some Charms homework to do.  
  
Daphne trudged back down the stairs, wishing the kitchens weren't four floors above her. She could really use some caffeine about now.  
  
As much as she would like to have found a larger-than-life coffee pot sitting at her table back in the common room, what she did find may have been more surprising. Draco Malfoy sat lounging in her chair, scornfully eyeing her scroll.  
  
Daphne felt her face flush. It was certainly not first rate, she knew, but did he have to look at it with so much contempt? Why was he looking at it in the first place? Why was he even in the common room? It was two in the bloody morning, for Merlin's sake!  
  
Though Daphne would have liked to fade into the shadows and slink back to her dorm, it was too late. Malfoy had spotted her.  
  
"It stinks in here," he drawled. She should have known the first thing out of his mouth would be pointless, spiteful, and above all, genuinely Malfoy.  
  
"Smells better than it did," she shot back, glaring. "Lucky I was working on the olfactrius charm when your little girlfriend threw up all over the place." Malfoy's long, pointed nose wrinkled in distaste. "Really, must you be so crude, Greengrass? 'Threw up all over the place', honestly."  
  
Daphne was wishing as strongly as she could that Malfoy would turn into a cup of strong black coffee, or at least a nice bar of Honeydukes' best chocolate. Unfortunately, though, he was still whining.  
  
"How very touching that your olfactrius charm smells like _grass_. It's just so _adorable_." He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "And which of my little girlfriends did you mean? I do have several, after all." He smirked, apparently amused by himself.  
  
"Parkinson. And I think _groupies _might be a more accurate term than 'little girlfriends'. Besides, what does your olfactrius charm smell like, dragon dung?"  
  
Malfoy scowled. _Certainly not a good look on him_, Daphne thought spitefully. "I'll have you know, Greengrass, that my charm is far superior to yours!"  
  
"Oh really?" This time she wore the annoying smirk.  
  
Malfoy was visibly peeved. "Olfactrius!" he said coolly. Immediately the room filled with a heavy, stifling musk reminiscent of Trelawney's classroom. Coughing and squinting, Daphne stumbled out of the common room, Malfoy in close pursuit. The stone door swung shut behind them, concealing itself in the wall once more.  
  
"Far... superior?" Daphne wheezed. "Malfoy, that was downright disgusting!"  
  
Indeed, Malfoy looked thoroughly irked that his charm had smelled so strongly of an old woman's perfume. "Don't know why it did that," he muttered, almost to himself. "I tried it at home, it smelled like burning hair..."  
  
"Like that's any better," Daphne said under her breath. In a slightly louder tone, she asked, "What were you doing in the common room at two a.m., anyway?"  
  
He glared at her. "You and your stupid crying woke me up." She swore she heard him mutter _plebe _under his breath, but she couldn't be sure. He then commenced to sulking silently. Daphne rolled her eyes, deciding not to waste her breath explaining that it was _Pansy_, not _her_, who'd been doing the sobbing. In fact, she had just been struck with a terrifying thought: she had forgotten the password back into her own common room.  
  
_ Stupid, stupid, stupid_, spat a tiny voice in her head sounding remarkably like Malfoy's. _How very stupid of you! Of course, it's all one can expect from such a stupid girl...  
_  
Another voice cut the other off, this one sounding more like Dumbledore. _I'm not stupid. It was a common, mistake, I've only been back a few days after all, I'm just stressed and it slipped my mind, easy as that.  
  
Your mind seems to be very slippery, though that might have something to do with how very _stupid _you are._  
  
"Oh, enough already!" Daphne sighed aloud. Malfoy tried to glare, sulk and scowl all at the same time, which made him look like a vicious rat who had just swallowed a lemon thinking it was a brick of cheese.  
  
"All I was asking, Greengrass, is if you know the password, because it seems to have... slipped my mind." He spoke the last words as though it took a great deal of effort to admit this.  
  
Daphne just blinked at him.  
  
"Chanel Number Five," came a husky female voice from behind them. They both turned to see Millicent Bulstrode standing there, arms laden with butterbeer and chocolate. She smiled sheepishly. "Midnight cravings," she said by way of explanation before lumbering past the (rather stunned pair) in front of where the door normally stood. Daphne stared after her, open mouthed.  
  
The door had swung open.  
  
Daphne and Malfoy both hurried though in the wake of Millicent, who was now casting looks about the common room as if to insure no one had seen them.  
  
"Uh, Millicent," Daphne said quietly. "That's not the password, is it? Chanel Number Five?" Millicent looked down at her in a pitying sort of way. "Of course it is," she answered, sounding politely exasperated.  
  
"What in the bloody hell is Flamel Number Five?" Malfoy asked, sniffing the air to be sure his charm had diminished fully. Millicent patted his head awkwardly with one large hand. "Not Flamel, silly," she said condescendingly. "Chanel. It's a muggle perfume. And-"she too sniffed the air. "-it smells very similar, if not exactly like, this." She grinned lopsidedly at him. He glared back.  
  
"Well, you'd better go to bed now, little Malfoy," she said after a moment had passed. "it's far past your bedtime." Again she gave him a rough pat on the head before spinning him around by the shoulder and giving him a push towards the boys dormitories. It wasn't until he opened the door and glared back at the two girls that Daphne realized his pajamas, which had been plain black before, were now patterned gaudily with fire trucks.  
  
"Wow, Millicent," Daphne breathed, casting wondering eyes towards the larger girl. "That was brilliant!" Millicent grinned devilishly. "Thanks," she said. "I thought it would work as blackmail if he tries to turn me in for sneaking out after curfew." Daphne grinned back; there was obviously more to Millicent than she let on!  
  
"Thanks, Millicent. Really. I don't know what I would have done if I had to be stuck in the corridor with Malfoy much longer..."  
  
"Here," Millicent replied simply. "Have some chocolate." 

Forty minutes later, a very exhausted Daphne looked admiringly at her paper.  
  
_Uses of the Olfactrius Charm  
Daphne Greengrass  
  
The Olfactrius charm is, in a word, useful. It comes in wonderfully handy for those awkward moments when the air is carrying an unpleasant note, but it would be rude to even entertain the thought of grabbing an air deodorizer.  
  
This charm, as I have learned, is not only useful, but a reflection of the witch or wizard who cast it. When I, Daphne Greengrass, cast this charm, It normally gives off a pleasant odor of fresh cut grass. However, If I am in a particularly foul mood, it smells like leaf rot. Not so pleasant.  
  
I have noticed this in my peers' work as well. When one mister Draco Malfoy casts this spell in his usual callous mood, it smells strongly of burning hair (according to him, anyway; it is my personal opinion it really smells like dragon dung but he is too ashamed to admit it.) Though when he is aggravated, it smells overpoweringly like a muggle perfume known as Chanel Number Five...  
_

It was, in a word, perfect.


End file.
